Whitford Pony Club in Auckland New Zealand is getting a new roof for the orange-brick cottage that sits on their land. Local historian says the cottage is more than 100 years old.

In recent years the roof has fallen into disarray and become dangerous. The corrugated iron has been falling off the building and created a hazard. Club Vice President Wendy MacKenzie said they have been trying to raise money to get the building restored since 2001.

Metalcraft Roofing and sister company Akarana Timber supplied the materials and labor for free to repair the ailing roof.

Cost over $10,000 to repair

Jasper Campbell, Metalcraft manager said “I live out in Beachlands, so I drive past it twice a day and our general manager has an association with the Whitford Pony Club apparently years ago with his children who used to ride there.”

Howick historian Alan La Roche said the cottage is “a very important landmark in Whitford. It’s probably the last brickwork laborer’s cottage in Auckland.”

La Roche said the cottage was part of a brickworks founded on a 640 acre block of land by John Granger in 1898 and employed more than 20 workers.

Mrs. Mackenzie said as soon as the roof repair is complete, the club will restore the windows to weather seal the cottage.

Atascadero City Administration Building will be getting new and refurbished tiles for the earthquake damaged dome. The 2003 the Simeon earthquake severely damaged the historic building.

Monday workers began reinstalling roof tiles on the upper dome. As part of the restoration, all of the tiles were removed from the dome. Broken and damaged tiles were discarded, some tiles were repaired and approximately 3,000 new tiles were built for the project and 5,800 old tiles will be used.

Historian Verifies Consistency

Dan Huff, Bernards Construction Superintendent said the new tiles were designed to be indistinguishable from the old ones.

The project is expected to take 6 weeks to complete. Huff intends to keep the roofing crew small for safety and quality. While waiting for the tiles, the roofers made heavy duty structural additions to the dome.

The building was built in 1918 by Atascadero founder E.G. Lewis and later sold to Frank Moran in 1927 and turned into a junior college.

Repairs to the building will cost approximately $42 million. Just short of half of that will be paid by the federal government and the city will pay for the rest. You can follow along with the process at www.atascadero.org scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the building.

In Beatrice Nebraska, Gage County Board of Supervisors hired Omaha based Scott Enterprises to replace the historic courthouse roof. According to court documents Scott Enterprises Inc., states the county did not pay the full amount agreed upon. They are suing the county for $59,271 for the remainder due on the contract.

From April 2009 to December 2010, the roofing contractor replaced the asphalt roof of the courthouse with Vermont green slate. The county initiated 12 change orders from the original contract of $392,399 increasing the cost of the project to $519,968.04. The county paid $460,700 and states the new roof is functional and does not need any further repair.

County “Disagreed” With the Payment

Chief Deputy Attorney Rich Schreiner of Gage County said the decision was made about the amount of the final payment after consulting with Berggren Architects. Schreiner said “We disagreed the way some of the work was performed and adjusted our payments accordingly.”

The $2.9 million bond to renovate the courthouse included replacing the asphalt roof to the Vermont green slate shingles to look more like the original roof from 1892.

Montacute House was built in the late 16th century for Sir Edward Phelips. The orangery was added to the property in the 1840’s to cover and protect the winter orange trees.

The orangery roof was reconfigured shortly after construction but little was spent on the orangery during the years. The oak rafters, beams and hips had begun to rot and the weight of the snow for two consecutive years caused the old roof to collapse.

National Trust now runs the property and raised £10,000 through raffles to pay for the roof repair. Each glass pane was recorded and carefully removed when the roof was dismantled. 2,380 panes of glass had to be restored, replaced and cleaned before being refitted in their lead casing.

Visitors Watching the Restoration

Visitors are able to climb a platform on the scaffolding and watch the restoration work being done on the Montacute House Orangery.

Edward Phelips had acquired enough wealth through his inheritance, legal work and role at court to build the house in his home village. William Arnold, a master mason was appointed to oversee the building of the house. The house was designed as it was built, estimated cost to build Montacute was £20,000.

The 103 year old courthouse is getting a $5 million facelift to restore and repair the exterior. Leaks from the main dome have damaged the interior of the courthouse. They expect the majority of the exterior projects to be completed by the middle of September.

The main dome and 4 smaller domes have also received a fresh color change from white to gray. The color change is due to a new waterproofing application that began 2 weeks ago and expected to be completed by the first of August. Gray was chosen to replace the white to make the courthouse more in line with the original construction back in 1909.

Several Stage Waterproofing

First the workers removed all the paint and waterproofing covers from the terra cotta roof tiles on the main dome and 4 smaller domes. Next step in the several stage waterproofing process is to apply a reinforcement of hairy mesh fabric to help protect from cracking from thermal extremes.

D.A. Nolt Inc. of Berlin, NJ is the construction manager for the project. Next year the county will seek bids for roof repair, and then the focus will shift to interior restoration.

Built in 1852, the Fitchburg Massachusetts City Hall is in desperate need of roof repair. The trusses are compromised and the building is on the verge of falling down. According to two recent inspections from engineering firms, the roof needs to be fixed by winter.

Built in the form of a Roman Temple it served as the city of Fitchburg’s first town hall. At the time it was considered an architectural wonder.

As well as needing updating throughout the historic building, the wooden truss in front of the building that holds up the roof is failing. In the 1990’s the truss was reinforced, engineers said it should have been jacked up another 6 inches.

Tear down or Refurbish the Historical Building

Officials are considering demolishing the building and moving to temporary offices while a new city hall is to be built. While others want to preserve the historical building at all costs.

Mayor Lisa A. Wong said “I would definitely personally hate to see the building gone, but at the same time, this building is potentially too far gone both historically and practically for us to continue operating here.”

Samuel R. Blair, chairman of the Historical Commission said “It absolutely has to be preserved. It is a symbol of the city and an extremely important architectural structure on upper Main Street that is the center of our city government. You cannot convince me there is no way of saving it.”

Estimates for replacing the roof truss are $200,000. The discussion will continue at the next meeting Tuesday in City Hall.

The Hershey Pennsylvania’s historic arena’s roof burned for more than 2 ½ hours before firefighters could put out the fire. Director or safety and security for Hershey, Tim Shellenberger said there was little damage to the building, but it will take a few days to clean up the soot and clear out the smoke.

The fire started Thursday around 1 p.m. in a small area of the roof top that had a wooden structure and multiple layers of building materials. The wood smoldered and then caught fire. Workers have been making $2 million worth of roof repairs at the time. It is unknown at this time if the roof repairs triggered the fire.

5 Alarm Fire

More than 200 firefighters from neighboring towns came to fight the fire. The fire was difficult to contain since it was 100 feet above the arena floor with very few access points.

The nearly 100 degree weather caused a few emergency personnel to be treated for heat exhaustion. Firefighters worked in 20 minute shifts in the sweltering heat.

Pat Leonard, chief of the Hershey Volunteer Fire Co. said “I call it almost a $100 fire and just a lot of manpower to put it out.” He went on to say with regards to the integrity of the roof “This structure is concrete from the basement all the way to the roof, that’s a continuous poured concrete roof on that structure.”

Once the roof is repaired and the soot and damage cleaned up, owners expect the 75 year old Hershey arena to be back to normal.

Jack Tasker, owner of a 500 year old picturesque cottage in the village of Preston St Mary, Suffolk could face prison time unless he removes his new thatch roof. Tasker is accused of carrying out unauthorized work on a listed building which is a criminal offense, in which case he can be fined or imprisoned.

The cottage was built around 1510 and believed to be the oldest barn conversion in the country. Tasker spent over £13,000 replacing the thatched roof.

Planning enforcement officers at Babergh District Council sent Tasker a letter informing him that his roof was ‘unacceptable, out of character and had been put on without permission.’ Senior enforcement officer Ben Elvin said the roof is 4 inches too high.

Asked to Replace the Roof

Elvin said “the council had no option to ask Mr. Tasker to replace that thatching that has been carried out with one that matches the adjoining property.”

Tasker said the problem is that his next door neighbor refused to have their roofs re thatched together resulting in them both carrying out work separately in different styles. He also said his thatched roof followed the guidelines while his neighbors broke with tradition.

Peter Burrows, the council head of economy said the only way out is for Mr. Tasker to submit a retrospective application for his new roof, despite planners saying is unlikely to be approved.

A 30 by 100 foot section of the roof collapsed at the Midway Theater in Rockford Illinois on March 23rd. The historic theater is the gateway to Rockford’s downtown. The building features a clock tower, signature marquee and an intricately designed facade.

The building owner Peter S. Crane must complete the roof repair in accordance with a strict timeline or face payment of the full code violation fine of $45,000. City officials had originally sought $135,000 in fines because of the lack of progress towards repairing the unsafe structure.

Goal to Get Property Up To Code

City Attorney Jennifer Cacciapaglia said “Our goal is to get the property back up to code, maintain its structural integrity and as long as we can do those things, we are willing to reduce the fine to $1,000.”

According to experts, the remaining structure can support a new roof if trusses are installed. The roof must be repaired and replaced by November 1st, but does allow some delays in case of bad weather.

The Midway Theater originally opened on August 3, 1918 and hosted live performances. Able to seat 2,000 it was the largest motion picture theater in northern Illinois. The theater operated as a movie house until August 1980 when a fire almost destroyed it.

The roof of an old dairy barn in Fairbanks Alaska is getting a new coat of paint spelling out the words “Creamers Dairy”. It took Ryan Masson three days to repaint the 7 foot tall letters on the metal roof. The word “CREAMERS” is 67 feet long and “DAIRY” is 35 feet long. Masson who works for Dynamic Painting said “they’re a lot bigger than they look.”

Dairy Farm

In 1927, chicken rancher Robert Albert Creamer moved to Fairbanks and established Creamer’s Dairy. From photo evidence, the large black words were most likely painted on the new roof of the creamery when it was built sometime between 1940-42. The dairy operated until just after the 1967 flood. After his death the area became a state sanctuary.

The 250 acre farm was purchased by the state in 1966 and is now a 2,000 acre waterfowl rescue, Creamers Field Migratory Wildlife Refuge. The barn, farmhouse and surrounding 12 acres were listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1977.